Air Force's B-21 Raider Making More Test Flights as Service Eyes 2 New Basing Locations

The Air Force has chosen two additional bases to eventually be home to the B-21 Raider, as the service said this week that its first new bomber since the end of the Cold War has been flying more often as part of its testing.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall announced this month that Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri and Dyess Air Force Base in Texas will be the second and third installations, respectively, to host the new bomber. Service officials gave more updates on the B-21 Raider's development progress during the Air and Space Forces Association conference outside of Washington, D.C., this week.

Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota had already been announced as the first and main operating base, as well as the location of the bomber's formal training unit.

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Whiteman currently houses the B-2 Spirit bomber. Dyess, like Ellsworth, hosts the B-1 Lancer bomber. The B-21 Raider, which was unveiled in late 2022, will eventually replace both the B-2 and B-1 fleets.

The Department of Defense has previously said it plans to acquire around 100 B-21s, more than the Air Force's current B-2 and B-1B fleets combined. Each new bomber costs about $700 million.

During the Air and Space Forces Association's conference, service officials and Northrop Grumman, the contractor building the bomber, updated attendees on the B-21's progress.

Thomas Jones, Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems sector president, told attendees that the B-21 is in flight testing and has been taking to the skies more regularly.

"We're really starting to strike up quite a cadence [and] generate two test flights in a given week," Jones said during a panel regarding the B-21. "When we started this journey, we made a vow that we were going to design this system to be a daily flier. It's been a phenomenal year of progress, and we hope to continue that through the next year."

The B-21 is starting to appear more frequently and has been captured on video eerily whooshing through the California skies.

New footage of the B-21 Raider taking off and landing was played to the crowd at the conference.

Gen. Thomas Bussiere, Air Force Global Strike Command commander, said during a panel that the new bomber will likely get a lot of use.

"That demand signal, in my opinion, is only going to go up in the years ahead," Bussiere said. "As we transition from legacy to new, the B-21 fleet will provide great comfort to our allies and should provide great pause to any potential adversary."

The Air Force hopes to have the first B-21 delivered sometime in the mid-2020s.

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